Best Wide Receiver Stacks for 2021

August 5, 2021

Antonio Losada looks at wide receiver groups poised to score high in 2021 fantasy football leagues as WR stacks that you should consider in drafts.

Sometimes we're afraid of putting together players from the same team on our rosters, let alone weekly lineups. To a certain extent, that makes sense: the opportunities one gets will take away from the opportunities the other could have gotten. Why limit the fantasy upside of our team with two receivers playing in the same offense rather than picking two from different ones?

The truth is there are certain players that are often overlooked, who while going at cheap ADPs, can still become game-changers. Virtually every no. 1 wide receiver will get drafted inside the first 10 rounds of your draft, and there is nothing you can do to prevent that. But when it comes to picking second-fiddles and flex options, you can take advantage of some "buried" receivers in certain depth charts that still carry tons of potential because of the teams they play for.

Today, I'm trying to highlight some teams/receivers worth stacking even if they will be sharing opportunities in their offenses. Let's get to it!

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Mike Evans & Chris Godwin & Antonio Brown

Just two years ago, Tom Brady was still throwing passes in New England. Just two years ago, playing under QB Jameis Winston (he of the 30-30), Mike Evans and Chris Godwin had a season for the ages, racking up 1,157+ yards on 67+ receptions each to go with eight and nine touchdowns scored over the 2019 season. While they couldn't repeat that last year, it was all because of Godwin missing four games in 2020, as both were clearly on pace to match or raise those 2019 marks.

Judging by PFF projections, both Evans and Godwin should finish the year as a WR1. I don't think I need to mention it, but no other time have two wideouts projected for such a finish, with the Vikings being the closest thing to that (no. 6 and no. 18 WR-projections). The pair of Evans and Godwin would combine for a massive 503.2 PPR points over the 17-game season, the most by far among two teammates at the position.

As a last note, it must be said that both Antonio Brown and Rob Gronkowski are obviously a notch below the level of the other two these days, but even they look like very neat values to draft late in your league draft. None is getting drafted inside the first 140 picks these days, yet they are projected to finish above or close to their current ADPs. Brown's 118th finish is making him a positive ROI player (170+ PPR) and Gronk is still a TE2-projected player too (116+ PPR).

The combination of the three WRs in that four-man group has the largest PPR projection (673.5 fantasy points) while getting off draft boards at a reasonable 248.1 ADP averaging the prices of the three players, only the 14th-highest price among all 32 NFL teams.

Buffalo Bills

Stefon Diggs & Cole Beasley & Gabriel Davis

Even if you don't think 2020 Diggs is True Level Diggs, odds are he still thrives and puts on weekly shows throughout the 2021 campaign. Diggs' last year levels of performance were borderline historic and will undoubtedly regress a little bit. Two players were able to edge Diggs in the PPR-format WR leaderboard (Tyreek Hill by 0.3 FP and Davante Adams by 30 FP), but Diggs finished the year with a ridiculous 1,535 yards on 121 receptions while scoring a low-for-his-volume eight touchdowns.

All of Cole Beasley, Gabriel Davis, and Dawson Knox were already in Buffalo when Diggs put on his career year last season. There is a new boy in town for the 2021 campaign, as the Bills added Emmanuel Sanders to the fold after getting rid of former supposed-WR2 John Brown. Turns out, though, Brown was an afterthought and Beasley/Davis was the actual pairing taking on the heavier weight behind Diggs.

This is the classic offense led by a top-dog to go with a bunch of secondary wideouts spread over the field, but that doesn't mean those forming the latter group are bad by any means. Judging by PFF projections, this squad has a WR1 (Diggs; 287+ PPR) in it and three more players projected to either WR3 (Beasley; 198+) or WR4/FLEX (Davis and Sanders; 157+ and 139+).

Even if you don't believe it, all of Beasley, Davis, Sanders, and Knox are getting drafted with ADPs below 137th overall at the time of this writing, and all of them project to finish above their ADPs in the overall PPR leaderboard for the 2021 campaign. Can't get much better in terms of ROI when it comes to Bills' pass catchers.

Pittsburgh Steelers

Chase Claypool & Diontae Johnson & JuJu Smith-Schuster

The Steelers have a rather balanced offense in terms of the role their wideouts play, their profiles, the fact that they have a reliable tight end capable of getting his fair share of defensive attention, and a rookie RB whose upside can't look much better. Put it all together, and you end with a top-seven team in projected PPR points from the skill positions players if PFF projections hold up.

Coming out of left field, Chase Claypool truly found a place in the NFL as a rookie last season. It took the freshman no time to rack up 214.9 PPR points and snatch a WR2, top-23 finish when all was said and done. We should tame our expectations a bit, as he had a booming 42+ PPR game in Week 5 while no other came at more than 21, but he proved to be more than a valuable player for Pittsburgh.

Diontae Johnson and veteran JuJu Smith-Schuster, though, could be the actual league-winners coming out of Pitt, along with TE Eric Ebron. The wide receivers project to reach 204+ and 189+ PPR points respectively, finishing inside the top-40 wide receivers in 2021 and have similar, short-route, possession-based profiles that undoubtedly help them rack up receptions on large target counts.

The Steelers' trio of receivers has just the 18th "most expensive" or higher ADP of all 32 teams on average, yet the Pitt group (considering only the top-three WRs of each team) projects to score more PPR points while being "cheaper" than all but two teams (Cincinnati and Dallas) among those 18. Pounce while it lasts.

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